The present invention relates to an electric motor of the linear or the rotary variety, in which the movable element moves in synchronism with energizing pulses applied to the stator element.
The invention arose pursuant to a development of an electromagnetic actuation mechanism for pulse counters having digit or cipher rolls. Such pulse counter actuators are usually driven by electromagnetically operated ratchet type devices, which have various drawbacks, among them being wear and unreliability. Step motors are also used occasionally, but they are often quite large. Also, the various known devices usually have mechanical locks to prevent the cipher rolls from turning back inadvertently. A step motor is known, for example, through German printed patent application OS 2,103,227. That motor is rather large. It has a permanent magnetic bias, which requires a much larger electromagnetic field to obtain a true rotational motion of the rotor rather than mere oscillations. Also, that rotor could start in the wrong direction.